A county sheriff stands up to Brenna Bird.
And Iowa's attorney general drops her lawsuit
If there’s one thing politicians know, it’s this: If you want to bury unflattering news, release it on a Friday afternoon.
Which is when Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird broke the news she was dropping her lawsuit against Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx. Her announcement landed in my inbox at 3:24 p.m. last Friday.
In a brief news release explaining her decision to drop the suit accusing Marx of violating state law by discouraging immigration enforcement, Bird made no mention of the loyalty oath that she previously demanded he take in order to avoid court action.
Nowhere have I found, in exchange for dismissal of the lawsuit, the approximately 220-word statement the attorney general’s office demanded Marx address to the people of Winneshiek County admitting to his error, confessing to multiple inaccuracies in a social media post and pledging “full and complete cooperation” with federal immigration officials.
It’s as if it never existed. A demand for public restitution that apparently has gone unpaid and unenforced.
The attorney general’s attempt at compelling full and complete subservience to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcers had its roots in a Facebook post that Marx, a Republican, addressed to his constituents in February.
Citing the US Constitution, Marx’s post objected to detainer requests from federal immigration authorities that weren’t backed by a judge’s order and said his office would resist them. He added he had a longtime stance of not recognizing detainer requests.
Gov. Kim Reynolds complained about Marx’s post, and Bird followed through with an investigation. Bird then claimed the sheriff was breaking a state law that prohibited discouraging immigration enforcement. She demanded he remove the post and publicly submit to the loyalty oath her office provided.
Marx, who actually had complied with previous detainer requests and said he could have been clearer, removed the post.
However, he refused to comply with Bird’s demand that he knuckle under and take her loyalty pledge.
Thus, Bird’s lawsuit and the effort to financially penalize Winneshiek County.
This had all the hallmarks of a Trumpian power play. Threatening the recalcitrant and supposedly insubordinate with court action and financial sanction to force submission.
However, unlike so many others facing this tactic, the sheriff and Winneshiek County fought the suit. And with the apparent support of the people of the Republican leaning county, too.
In her Friday afternoon news release, Bird claimed Marx “has now fully complied” with state law. But I’ve not even seen any admission by Marx he was ever out of compliance. In fact, in court filings, Marx said the suit contained no evidence the Facebook post ever discouraged enforcement of immigration laws.
Some news stories reporting on Bird’s announcement on Friday have quoted a statement by Marx saying it was never his intent to discourage immigration enforcement. But he said before Bird filed her lawsuit that his Facebook post was never meant to suggest the county would not cooperate with immigration enforcement.
Marx’s statement last week also said the department would “continue to comply with (state law) and encourage immigration enforcement under our written policies.”
That doesn’t sound like the expansive admission of wrongdoing—of surrender—that Bird had previously demanded.
So, what changed? Why did Marx not have to issue to the public the full 220-word confession?
Why gloss over that demand in the Friday afternoon news release?
These aren’t insignificant questions. In one court filing, Bird argued that until Marx issued a “public retraction” the violation is “ongoing.”
So, where is the public retraction?
I can’t answer that question, but one thing I can say is Bird’s lawsuit reverberated throughout this state.
The attorney general of Iowa was making a public demonstration of trying to bring to heel an allegedly offending elected official on an issue vitally important to the president of the United States.
She was putting on the line her reputation as a never-back-down prosecutor, who as a colleague put it, has repeatedly auditioned for Trump’s approval.
This lawsuit sent a clear message to every law enforcement agency, every citizen, in the state of Iowa.
Then, in a brief statement on a Friday afternoon, when few people were watching, Brenna Bird said she was dropping the whole thing.
What kind of message does that send?
It looks like it’s a message she hopes few people will notice.
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Thanks for shining a light on this one. I've been following since the beginning. Not sure why Bird and Reynolds think Iowans will respond well to dominance plays.
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
We will not walk in fear, one of another.
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men - not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular." - Edward R Murrow
Demonstrating their loyalty/fealty to Trump seems to Iowa Republicans’ single motive for action these days.